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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 4: Good Evening. She was his second wife to die. Coming
Speaker 4: off a failed marriage, a beautiful woman named Tony joined
Speaker 4: an online dating site hoping to find true and lasting love.
Speaker 4: Harold Henhorn seemed like her dream come true, a handsome
Speaker 4: man who said he had a heart for others. Only
Speaker 4: weeks after meeting, they were wed. But Tony's family began
Speaker 4: noticing Harold's dark side, especially his controlling nature, which Tony
Speaker 4: didn't seem to mind until she met her end at
Speaker 4: the bottom of a ravine. Was he a grieving husband
Speaker 4: or a black widower. Harold's tearful story of his wife's
Speaker 4: hiking accident just didn't hold up with Tony's family or
Speaker 4: the police. Then a shocking truth was uncovered. Twenty years
Speaker 4: before Harold's first wife had also died suspiciously in a
Speaker 4: remote area with no witnesses. Soon, more questions arose, who
Speaker 4: was Harold Hendhorn a devoted, grief stricken husband or a cold,
Speaker 4: calculating killer. Could authorities find a way to connect his
Speaker 4: wife's deaths and expose the truth? Book that were featuring
Speaker 4: this evening as The Black Widower, a beautiful doctor, her
Speaker 4: seemingly perfect a husband, and a chilling death with my
Speaker 4: special guest journalist and author Michael Fleeman. Welcome back to
Speaker 4: the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to
Speaker 4: this interview. Michael Fleeman, thanks for having me, Dan, thank
Speaker 4: you very much. Welcome back. Incredible story here, The Black Widower.
Speaker 4: As you do with this, let's just jump right into
Speaker 4: this story because we have a lot to cover and
Speaker 4: it's an amazing, involved, heartbreaking, and interesting and fascinating story.
Speaker 4: So let's get right to Harold and Tony Hanhorn as
Speaker 4: you do in the beginning of your book. They're at
Speaker 4: Deer Mountain and they're middle aged couple and they've spent
Speaker 4: the night at this Stanley Hotel in ST's Park, Colorado,
Speaker 4: celebrating their twelfth anniversary. And this is September twenty ninth,
Speaker 4: twenty twelve. Can you take it from there what they
Speaker 4: did after this anniversary? And they say what they were,
Speaker 4: what he had planned, what they had planned together, what
Speaker 4: they were going to do as part of this twelfth anniversary.
Speaker 2: Sure, this was a very romantic weekend that Harold had
Speaker 2: meticulously planned for his wife for their anniversary. He in fact,
Speaker 2: had not even told her that they were going to
Speaker 2: go away that weekend, and he had conspired with her
Speaker 2: coworkers to not tell them. And he showed up at
Speaker 2: a work and whisked her off to the Stanley Hotel
Speaker 2: in Estes Park, is a gorgeous, big historic hotel and
Speaker 2: a beautiful, beautiful location in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains,
Speaker 2: and they spend the night, they wake up the next morning.
Speaker 2: He had made reservations that night at a steakhouse for
Speaker 2: dinner for their anniversary dinner, and during the day he
Speaker 2: had made plans for them to take a hike up
Speaker 2: Dear Mountain. And this is a trail that goes several
Speaker 2: miles up to an overlook really on the on the
Speaker 2: edge of the Rocky Mountains, where you can see for
Speaker 2: miles and miles in every direction, and so before there,
Speaker 2: before their dinner, they were going to take a hike,
Speaker 2: and that's what they did.
Speaker 4: Now, just for those people that are interested in hiking,
Speaker 4: and just to explain this as well, there is a
Speaker 4: ratings on the trail difficulty. Now, what was the trail
Speaker 4: difficulty at that time and basically overall, what was it
Speaker 4: considered what they were planning to do, followed the trail
Speaker 4: the way everyone would, what was the difficulty and so
Speaker 4: what was the risk of of anything happening likely in
Speaker 4: this during this hike?
Speaker 2: This is not a not a stroll in the park.
Speaker 2: The trail is rated moderate, which for some of us
Speaker 2: who are over fifty, moderate can seem very difficult. There
Speaker 2: were some The trail, like I said, goes for several miles,
Speaker 2: it's steeped, there's switchbacks, it goes over rocks. You know,
Speaker 2: we're talking a very high altitude in the Rocky mountains.
Speaker 2: It is fall, so you know if something goes wrong,
Speaker 2: the temperatures are going to drop to freezing overnight. So
Speaker 2: you know this is this is not an easy nature hike.
Speaker 4: Now you talk about the where they set out and
Speaker 4: you describe their venture, and also that there's these well
Speaker 4: worn paths. But tell us what they as the day
Speaker 4: wears on again, increasing the difficulty, increasing the risk is
Speaker 4: spending too much time out there, as you say, before
Speaker 4: temperatures drop and before they lose the sun. And so
Speaker 4: what do they do despite what might people might characterize
Speaker 4: as risky behavior? What did they do?
Speaker 2: Well? They went off the trail, which anybody who goes
Speaker 2: to a national park knows you're not supposed to do
Speaker 2: for good reason. They they veered off the trail and
Speaker 2: went down a very kind of steep, rocky incline. It's
Speaker 2: it's through a bunch of trees and it takes them
Speaker 2: to what looks like the edge of the earth, to
Speaker 2: a cliff with hundreds of feet to drop below. It's
Speaker 2: they called it a knob or a precipice, or whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it, but it's just a rocky
Speaker 2: outcropping which has a spectacular view. But it took them,
Speaker 2: you know, a mile or so off the beaten path,
Speaker 2: away from the trail that the rain want you to
Speaker 2: stay on.
Speaker 4: At some point you put that they are using cameras
Speaker 4: and are taking photos. And Tony, which is fifty years old,
Speaker 4: was taking a photo. As we we find out later.
Speaker 4: Everything's recorded these days digitally, So let's talk about what
Speaker 4: the next thing that happens and what Harold Henhorns responses, Sure,
Speaker 4: so the whole the.
Speaker 2: Whole morning, we know exactly what they did because they
Speaker 2: took pictures. They took pictures in the car, on their
Speaker 2: phone and on her camera. They took pictures on the hike.
Speaker 2: It looks like somebody else might have even snapped a
Speaker 2: picture of them. They look happy and Tony. Tony always
Speaker 2: put on her makeup and did her hair, and you know,
Speaker 2: even even for a grungy hike, she she wanted to
Speaker 2: look her best. So we know everything that went on.
Speaker 2: And while they're out on this rocky precipice, according to
Speaker 2: according to Harold, they're looking for wildlife. And you know,
Speaker 2: he's he's taking a picture of Tony. Uh, he says.
Speaker 2: He gets a text message from they have a young daughter,
Speaker 2: and got a tech text message from the babysitter with
Speaker 2: an update on the daughter's soccer game that day, and
Speaker 2: out of the corner of his eye he sees a
Speaker 2: blur and he looks up on this rocky outcropping and
Speaker 2: Tony is gone.
Speaker 4: Now what does he do right away? And what is
Speaker 4: his message to nine one one.
Speaker 2: What happens, Well, he right away does not call nine
Speaker 2: one one. He does have his cell phone with him
Speaker 2: and he kind of looks out over the over the
Speaker 2: ledge thinks he sees Tony far below on the ground.
Speaker 2: She's wearing kind of a bright pink shirt sweaters, so
Speaker 2: she's easy to spot. And he shimmis and crawls and
Speaker 2: makes his way down down down the mountain takes him
Speaker 2: about forty forty five minutes to where he finds his
Speaker 2: wife badly, badly injured from a long fall, you know,
Speaker 2: fifty hundred feet it looks like to him, And that's
Speaker 2: when he calls nine to one one looking for help.
Speaker 4: Now they ask him certain questions and what is his response?
Speaker 4: They ask him questions like do you do you know
Speaker 4: how to do CPR? What's his response? And then what
Speaker 4: are the directions they give him? And they back and
Speaker 4: forth between him and that operation.
Speaker 2: Well, he's the He first gives them their their location
Speaker 2: and he's talking to a like an emergency operator of
Speaker 2: the parks service, and he tells in their location and
Speaker 2: he becomes increasingly frustrated with the dispatcher because he wants
Speaker 2: them to send, you know, one of those rescue helicopters,
Speaker 2: to get them right away and send a helicopter. I'll
Speaker 2: pay for it, you know. And you know, he tells
Speaker 2: them his wife's not doing very well, and you know,
Speaker 2: they say, we can't just land helicopter there on the
Speaker 2: side of the mountain. This gets him annoyed, and and
Speaker 2: they they tell him, look, you've got to do CPR
Speaker 2: on her, and they transfer him to a police officer
Speaker 2: as to Spark police who's going to lead him through
Speaker 2: CPR and kind of explains how do you do the
Speaker 2: chess compressions and breathing into the mouth. And the police
Speaker 2: officer gets these instructions, and after about thirty seconds, Harold say, yeya,
Speaker 2: I already did that, and she said, well, you know
Speaker 2: we need to do this. No, no, no, I've already
Speaker 2: think cared that. And so his behavior is somewhat odd.
Speaker 2: And all this time it's getting darker and colder, and
Speaker 2: a ranger has been dispatched to try to find them
Speaker 2: and can't seem to find them, and so he doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to want to do CPR. He's becoming testy and
Speaker 2: irritable with the dispatcher for not sending the helicopter and
Speaker 2: he's starting to get testing irritable about why this ranger
Speaker 2: hasn't shown up.
Speaker 4: Does he make any other calls at that time as well?
Speaker 2: He does his wife's brother. She has two brothers, and
Speaker 2: one of them is a cardiologist, and he calls and texts, actually,
Speaker 2: he calls and texts the cardiologist and you know, he's
Speaker 2: he's giving Tony's vital signs and you know, telling them
Speaker 2: kind of giving him an update on the health. And
Speaker 2: you know, the brother is looking at these vital signs
Speaker 2: and you know, the pulse and respiration and it's not
Speaker 2: making a lot of sense to him. The brother, of course,
Speaker 2: is extremely extremely worried about what's going on with his sister.
Speaker 4: And the he has the suspicions arise, but he doesn't
Speaker 4: think anything of it. He's overwhelmed with this, just concern
Speaker 4: for his sister. Then you talk about a ranger, a
Speaker 4: forest ranger or a pardon me, a park ranger. Farity, yeah, charity,
Speaker 4: and he shows up on the scene and what does he.
Speaker 7: Witness immediately well, so he's finally sure the ranger, the
Speaker 7: forest ranger, National Park Service ranger finally finds the two
Speaker 7: of them at the bottom of this bottom of this
Speaker 7: hill and the bottom of this cliff.
Speaker 2: And it's an odd scene. You know, it looks like
Speaker 2: Tony has been dragged across the ground. Harold has started
Speaker 2: a little fire in the corner, and Verdy goes up
Speaker 2: and looks at looks at Tony and and realizes she's dead.
Speaker 4: And the the idea that he would have done CPR
Speaker 4: on her, what did he notice concerning the claim later
Speaker 4: that when he when he looked at it, of the
Speaker 4: or the idea that anyone would be performing CPR, that
Speaker 4: may not happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems kind of odd because it looks like
Speaker 2: Tony has fallen off a cliff. She crashed into some
Speaker 2: pine trees on the way down, and you know, it
Speaker 2: just doesn't look like he had done any CPR whatsoever.
Speaker 4: Now, how do they proceed with Tony? What do they do?
Speaker 4: You say, they can't bring in a helicopter, but how.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can't, you know. So they got to get
Speaker 2: Harold out of there, and he's his wife's dead, and
Speaker 2: so he has called some friends from the side of
Speaker 2: the mountain to pick him up at the trailhead, and
Speaker 2: so some other rangers spend the night there with Tony's body,
Speaker 2: while Harold meets his friends at the trailhead. Now means
Speaker 2: he's got to trudge three or so miles back to
Speaker 2: where they started their hike.
Speaker 4: So does anybody officially at that time have any reservations
Speaker 4: about him and about Harold and his involvement in this
Speaker 4: at all, And and if such as they often do
Speaker 4: with police, do they set up an interview with him?
Speaker 4: What's how with sure?
Speaker 2: So ranger faridee. He's a ranger, you know, with the
Speaker 2: smoky bear hat and all that. But what a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't realize is that in national parks rangers
Speaker 2: can also double as police officers. You can have detectives.
Speaker 2: So he's a trained investigator as well as a forest
Speaker 2: park ranger. And so he's very suspicious of Harold. The
Speaker 2: dispatcher was very suspicious. The cop who is on the
Speaker 2: line with him, you know, trying to get him induced
Speaker 2: farr was suspicious. And so you know, it's late, it's
Speaker 2: been a long day, so they rage. Ferdy makes arrangements
Speaker 2: to talk to Harold the next day to do an interview,
Speaker 2: kind of figure out what had happened.
Speaker 4: And how does he approach him because he has the
Speaker 4: official what he was told and now he has a
Speaker 4: chance at some point to examine that crime scene more carefully.
Speaker 4: So how does he approach approach Harold about this information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean at this point that night, they don't
Speaker 2: think of it as a crime scene so much as
Speaker 2: just a death scene. You know, it's a They preserve it,
Speaker 2: they're careful, but there's no real official suspicion that it's
Speaker 2: a crime. You know, it's a busy weekend in the park.
Speaker 2: A lot of people fall in national parks and hurt themselves,
Speaker 2: and so he's verity proceeding carefully, but he has his suspicions,
Speaker 2: and he has his suspicions that this is not an accident.
Speaker 2: And one of the things he does. Harold has this
Speaker 2: jeep that he drove to the trailhead, but his friends
Speaker 2: picked him up, So, you know, he leaves the jeep
Speaker 2: with the park service people and and hands them the
Speaker 2: keys and lets them look into the jeep. And one
Speaker 2: of the first things they do is they go through
Speaker 2: the jeep and they find a map of Rocky Mountain
Speaker 2: National Park in the jeep, and they open up the
Speaker 2: map and right there with a big X is the
Speaker 2: spot where they found Tony's body. Wow.
Speaker 4: No, they don't confront him about that X or or
Speaker 4: they don't push it's.
Speaker 2: What they play it. Yeah, they play it kind of cool.
Speaker 2: Faridy does go to Harold's house and interviews him, conducts
Speaker 2: a formal interview, and if Harold's behavior was odd on
Speaker 2: the phone on the mountain, it was even stranger by daytime.
Speaker 2: He didn't seem overly concerned about his wife's death. I
Speaker 2: think he shows the raiders like photos a slide show
Speaker 2: he was putting together for the funeral. He was very
Speaker 2: proud of his slide show. He was kind of a braggart,
Speaker 2: uh self involved, wanted to talk about himself a lot.
Speaker 2: Didn't seem to have any sadness much about his wife
Speaker 2: dying in a horrible fashion and him being unable to
Speaker 2: save her life. He gets the story again from Harold,
Speaker 2: you know what, you know, what were you doing up there?
Speaker 2: And you know why did you go off the trail?
Speaker 2: And Harold's well, we we wanted to have romantic time.
Speaker 2: You know, it was our anniversary. You know, it didn't
Speaker 2: make a lot of sense that you would, you know,
Speaker 2: go off the trail and shim me down all these
Speaker 2: rocks and you know, put yourself at risk. They asked
Speaker 2: Harold about his dinner plans that I know, yeah, we
Speaker 2: made reservations. Well, the timing of the reservations there was
Speaker 2: no way they were going to get back in time
Speaker 2: to make to make that steakhouse reservation.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: They they don't, as I recall, confront him immediately about
Speaker 2: this X because his behavior is so suspicious. The ranger
Speaker 2: one wants to play it cool, and two knows he's
Speaker 2: going to have to call in, you know, a detective,
Speaker 2: somebody who is a trained detective, and that's what they do.
Speaker 4: At the same time, they bring in the new detective
Speaker 4: and with far more experience they look into They ask him,
Speaker 4: Howard or Harold, pardon me about insurance and whether he
Speaker 4: would have any be a beneficiary. What does he tell
Speaker 4: him about the yes, does they have?
Speaker 2: And as I recall, it was, you know, three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty four hundred thousand dollars in life insurance might
Speaker 2: even been a little bit more than that. On on Tony,
Speaker 2: she's an ophthalmologist, you know, he tells him he's a
Speaker 2: business consultant. He does consulting with nonprofit organization, a very
Speaker 2: nice house in a Denver suburb, so you know, she's
Speaker 2: not overly insured for the people of that station. And
Speaker 2: he says, Harold tells the ranger, Yeah, we have this
Speaker 2: insurance on her life, but all the money goes to
Speaker 2: their daughter, who's like eight or nine years old. So
Speaker 2: that's that's what he tells about the.
Speaker 4: Assurance you talk about. On October first, twenty twelve, doctor
Speaker 4: Wilkinson the Emmy for Larimer County. What does he conclude
Speaker 4: from that examination?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's the he's the corner. Then does the
Speaker 2: does the autopsy on the body, and he finds what
Speaker 2: you might expect when somebody falls off a cliff and
Speaker 2: the body was was really ravaged, lots of broken bones
Speaker 2: and internal injuries. But he finds something kind of interesting,
Speaker 2: which is that her her breastbone, her sternum was not broken.
Speaker 2: And normally, when somebody, especially an amateur, is performing chess
Speaker 2: compressions or CPR, will you will have some injuries, some
Speaker 2: bruising or even a broken bone there. And so just
Speaker 2: from that examination, it appears appears that Harold did not
Speaker 2: perform CPR, and so you know, you have to ask
Speaker 2: yourself well, why did he claim he performed CPR when
Speaker 2: he didn't. And so the medical examiner does not give
Speaker 2: He gives a cause of death, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: a fall from a high distance onto the ground, but
Speaker 2: the manner of death. He says that a homicide cannot
Speaker 2: be ruled out. He just doesn't come to a conclusion.
Speaker 2: He refuses to say it was an accident.
Speaker 4: Right now, you cut to how Tony and who Tony is?
Speaker 4: He said, she's a successful doctor. And one day in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety nine, she sees a photo of a handsome
Speaker 4: man in his forties. Were we claiming to be in
Speaker 4: his forties on a dating site? Tell us about what
Speaker 4: kind of site she was looking at and what kind
Speaker 4: of person Tony was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Tony grew up in the South, in Mississippi.
Speaker 2: She came from a very wealthy family. They were in
Speaker 2: the oil business the hen Thorns, and father owned an
Speaker 2: oil business. Her other brother was in the oil business.
Speaker 2: Mother was a nurse. So she grew up in very
Speaker 2: well to household. She was kind of a jock growing up.
Speaker 2: She was very athletic, played basketball and other sports, and
Speaker 2: very very smart, very very smart. And so after high school,
Speaker 2: I think she went to I want to say old
Speaker 2: miss I can't remember, but went to college and pre med,
Speaker 2: went to medical school and became an opthalmologist, an eye doctor.
Speaker 2: And after graduation or she she married briefly and uh,
Speaker 2: it didn't work out, got divorced and it was very
Speaker 2: very embarrassed by that and felt that she had failed
Speaker 2: and it was her fault. So she blugs along as
Speaker 2: an optthalmologist in Mississippi, remains close to her family. She's
Speaker 2: very very religious, devoutly religious, and a very good kind soul,
Speaker 2: just the kind of person who always has something nice
Speaker 2: to say to everybody. She volunteers her time for sick kids,
Speaker 2: and you know, she does charity work and and and
Speaker 2: she's just this warm, wonderful person and it's amazing that
Speaker 2: you know, nobody would would would fall in love with her.
Speaker 2: And she doesn't tell her parents this, but she secretly
Speaker 2: goes on a dating website. It's called Christian Mingle. It's
Speaker 2: a it's a website for Christians, and she comes across
Speaker 2: this profile of a man who seems, frankly from his profile,
Speaker 2: too good to be true and even by the kind
Speaker 2: of standards of you know, people are always trying to
Speaker 2: put out their their best pace forward on a dating site.
Speaker 2: And this guy just seems perfect. Yeah, you know, he's successful. Uh,
Speaker 2: you knows, he's a businessman. He loves the outdoors, long
Speaker 2: strolls on the beach and you know, and he's devoutly religious,
Speaker 2: and and you know he's looking for you know, looking
Speaker 2: for somebody just like Tony. He's She calls up the photo.
Speaker 2: He's a good looking guy, you know, lives out in Colorado,
Speaker 2: and you know, she's really smitten frankly, just just reading
Speaker 2: his his profile. And so they begin, uh they begin
Speaker 2: kind of an online dating that that becomes in person dating.
Speaker 4: And how does the family, because they're really very close
Speaker 4: family Tony, the Bridolettes, and so what do they think
Speaker 4: of this whole idea once they do find out that
Speaker 4: she's been dating online, because there's a meeting they finally
Speaker 4: after several weeks. So what do they think of him? Well,
Speaker 4: they have any reservations whatsoever.
Speaker 2: You know. They they love their daughter's sister, Tony. They
Speaker 2: love Tony dearly. They know how devastated she was by
Speaker 2: the divorce. She's getting older, she wants to have the
Speaker 2: start a family, you know, and so They know how
Speaker 2: how eager she is to find love, to get married,
Speaker 2: to start having kids. They just want the best for her.
Speaker 2: They are a guest that she went on a dating website.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is southern, Southern gentility here, you know,
Speaker 2: these are these are they're very very you know, he's
Speaker 2: a part of the kind of the social elite of Mississippi,
Speaker 2: and so you know, they were maybe not devastated, but
Speaker 2: they were. They were surprised, you know, and and a
Speaker 2: little put off, you know. They they finally meet Harold.
Speaker 2: He comes out from Colorado, and it's one of those
Speaker 2: situations where, well, you know, probably not the guy they
Speaker 2: would have picked for her. He's a little loud, kind
Speaker 2: of brags a lot, you know, he's one of these
Speaker 2: guys that has an opinion on everything. But he had
Speaker 2: studied geology in college and Madison University in Virginia. And
Speaker 2: one of Tony's brothers is a geologist and her father's
Speaker 2: a geologist because they're in the oil business. So they
Speaker 2: have that in common. And he clearly clearly knows what
Speaker 2: he's talking about. He says he does volunteer, I mean
Speaker 2: business consulting for nonprofits, and I think it was her
Speaker 2: father also knew somebody in the same business, and he
Speaker 2: seemed to know you know, he could talk to the talk.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's one of these things where no,
Speaker 2: they they didn't think he was perfect for her, but
Speaker 2: she seemed just over the moon and happy, and he
Speaker 2: seemed financially secure and wasn't after her money, and you know,
Speaker 2: clearly had her interests in mind, and they both seemed
Speaker 2: very much in love. So you know, they wanted her
Speaker 2: to be happy. So whatever reservations weren't even reservations, whatever
Speaker 2: kind of feelings they had, they set aside and gave
Speaker 2: Tony their blessing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they did seem to be impressed and least not
Speaker 4: suspicious about any of the things that he was telling them.
Speaker 4: And also this is again shocking information, but they're also
Speaker 4: announced that they were going to be married nine months later,
Speaker 4: so yeah, that really it was an acceptance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that surprised them. I mean, they knew Tony
Speaker 2: was eager to get married and have children, they didn't
Speaker 2: know she was that eager. But you know, Tony, she's look,
Speaker 2: she's a doctor, she's a strong willed, educated woman, and
Speaker 2: you know, they that's what she wanted. Well, then that's
Speaker 2: what they were.
Speaker 4: Going to do. Now you say things were at least
Speaker 4: and in retrospect it always seems much more suspicious and telling.
Speaker 4: But you say, it was very odd right from the start.
Speaker 4: People noticed just a little odd thing indicative of something
Speaker 4: talks about the wedding. When you talk about the wedding announcement.
Speaker 4: What was the problem with the wedding announcement.
Speaker 2: For him, Well, he did not on the actual physical announcement,
Speaker 2: he did not want her identified as doctor Tony, you know,
Speaker 2: and they thought, well that was kind of strange. You know,
Speaker 2: he just wanted it, wanted it to be her name.
Speaker 2: He seemed very very intent on making all the decisions
Speaker 2: about the wedding. You know, he wanted to plan everything,
Speaker 2: which you know, they thought not to be sexist, but
Speaker 2: they thought that was kind of odd that that that
Speaker 2: he would be the one who had to make all
Speaker 2: the decisions and decide how everything should be. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: wanted the Bertolais to pay for everything, so you know,
Speaker 2: he just you know, here and there, he just kind
Speaker 2: of rubbed them the wrong way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you say, he asked the brother to do a
Speaker 4: favor in terms of setting up a rehearsal dinner, and
Speaker 4: then he said, well, I'll give you a check. I'll
Speaker 4: write your check and just never wrote the check. So
Speaker 4: we started off with the family at least, you know,
Speaker 4: for a guy that's supposed to be fabulously wealthy promising
Speaker 4: them build a million dollar home for their sister and
Speaker 4: their daughter, that he was stiff in them right at
Speaker 4: this point.
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Speaker 2: Can you say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but again the time.
Speaker 2: They're not marrying the guy she is, and he's not perfect.
Speaker 2: She clearly has rose colored glasses. But you know, maybe
Speaker 2: Tony wasn't perfect either, who knows, you know? He I
Speaker 2: think that they thought, well, he's not the guy we
Speaker 2: would pick, but she could probably do a lot worse.
Speaker 4: Right. They get married September thirtieth, two thousand, a big
Speaker 4: formal Southern wedding in Jackson, Mississippi, as you write, and
Speaker 4: ceremony at the First Baptist Church. And of course you
Speaker 4: say parents paid for the wedding. But despite that, you say,
Speaker 4: just like controlling kind of person, he tried to direct
Speaker 4: the wedding, picking out everything controlling every aspect of it.
Speaker 4: Then there was a honeymoon in Hawaii. Hawaii. Pardon me,
Speaker 4: what was it to talk right away about Tony and
Speaker 4: her profession? What was what was something that he was
Speaker 4: adamant about that he wanted to happen?
Speaker 2: Well, I you know, I think he wanted and I'm
Speaker 2: not quite sure which part of it I know. You know,
Speaker 2: he wanted her to move to Colorado with him, and
Speaker 2: he wanted her to work. She wanted to, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe go part time or even take time off to
Speaker 2: start a family. He not only wanted her in Colorado
Speaker 2: with him, uh and working, but you know, he wanted
Speaker 2: to have a bit of a say in in her career.
Speaker 2: Uh and to the point where, you know, he wanted
Speaker 2: to be if she was going to become a partner
Speaker 2: in a in a practice, he wanted to be involved
Speaker 2: in the planning and even in the meetings. He wanted
Speaker 2: to have this really integral role in her career when
Speaker 2: she kind of wanted to back off a little bit.
Speaker 4: Now, once they make the move and they give their
Speaker 4: blessing for their daughter to move to Denver, thus the
Speaker 4: relationship between and the closeness change between the family and
Speaker 4: Tony and you give sort of a sort of a
Speaker 4: great example of what they sort of sense or what
Speaker 4: they see or experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is when, you know, in the beginning he
Speaker 2: rubbed them. Harold rubbed the family the wrong way. They
Speaker 2: had you know, they didn't think he was perfect. But
Speaker 2: after they got married and moved to Denver, there were
Speaker 2: some real troubling signs and it appeared that that Harold
Speaker 2: was not just controlling about the wedding, he was controlling
Speaker 2: about everything. And you know, Tony's mom would call her
Speaker 2: and want to talk to her. They had a very
Speaker 2: close relationship their whole lives, and Harold would always insist
Speaker 2: on being on the line, wouldn't let Tony talk to
Speaker 2: her mother by herself, you know, things like that, and
Speaker 2: you know, they would the mother and would say, you know,
Speaker 2: Tony is They were a close family, but certainly at
Speaker 2: this point they were not the kind of family that
Speaker 2: would pry into each other's business too much, and her
Speaker 2: parents were very reluctant to even gingerly asked Tony of
Speaker 2: are are there are any problems in the marriage, partly
Speaker 2: because Tony was very defensive about it and made it
Speaker 2: very clear that she wasn't going to talk about it,
Speaker 2: but you know, they didn't in the beginning anyway, really
Speaker 2: really push if there was any issue.
Speaker 4: You talk about an incident near the border of Rocky
Speaker 4: Mountain National Park where the Henhorns owned a cabin and
Speaker 4: they couple spent Memorial Day there weekend twenty eleven, bringing
Speaker 4: her daughter, Haley. One of the things that came true
Speaker 4: for Tony was the birth of their daughter, Haley. At
Speaker 4: that time, she was six or seven, I believe, And
Speaker 4: on May twenty eighth, you talk about an incident at
Speaker 4: when they're at this camp that weekend, what happens, and
Speaker 4: tell us what Tony tells her parents and tell us
Speaker 4: about this whole incident.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're working, they have a cabin, a vacation
Speaker 2: cabin in the mountains, and they go up there for
Speaker 2: the weekend. And yes, they had a baby, and they're
Speaker 2: very happy, and Haley was a sweet, sweet little girl,
Speaker 2: and she's six seven years old at this point, and
Speaker 2: they're doing some because it's the weekend cabin. They're doing
Speaker 2: a little bit of work out on the deck and
Speaker 2: Tony's doing some work on the deck when all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, a big piece of wood falls down and
Speaker 2: bunks her in the head knocked. They're flat onto the
Speaker 2: ground and to the point where you know, they had
Speaker 2: to call the paramedics out, and you know, she's she's
Speaker 2: pretty badly injured and had some nerve damage and and
Speaker 2: you know, Harold had been kind of working up higher.
Speaker 2: She I think was on the ground and he was
Speaker 2: up on the deck or something like that, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was all like kind of suspicious how this big
Speaker 2: piece of wood came down and hit her. And you know,
Speaker 2: Harold had two or three versions of what actually happened.
Speaker 2: At one point said, oh, it was just a little
Speaker 2: piece of flashing or you know, a little small piece
Speaker 2: of wood, but it was obvious it was like a
Speaker 2: piece of plywood that hit her. And you know, he
Speaker 2: doesn't know what happened, and and he gives one story
Speaker 2: to the paramedics, and he gives a different story to
Speaker 2: Tony's parents, and you know, Tony doesn't entirely know, and
Speaker 2: you know now that the family is really starting to worry.
Speaker 2: You know, what is he abusing her? Did he try
Speaker 2: to try to her? And again, Tony's very defensive and
Speaker 2: just you know, insists that you know that didn't, you know,
Speaker 2: stay out of my business. I'll take care of it.
Speaker 4: It gets to the point where the warning sign is
Speaker 4: there that Tony's mother, Yvonne, told Tony that you didn't
Speaker 4: think this incident was an accident. And what was Tony's reaction?
Speaker 4: You say, you usually defensive? What did she say to
Speaker 4: her mother when she contended that.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm trying to remember what that was. As
Speaker 2: I recall, Tony finally gets less defensive and and you know, starts,
Speaker 2: you know, expressing for the first time to her family
Speaker 2: her own concerns about her marriage and about the future.
Speaker 2: And you know, and I can't remember if she told
Speaker 2: her mother or not, but at this point, she's worried
Speaker 2: about the money she's making all the money and Harold's
Speaker 2: not pulling his weight, and that she's going to get
Speaker 2: her own bank account, and and you know, may even
Speaker 2: be thinking about divorce.
Speaker 4: Right right. What does Barry when Barry hears the news,
Speaker 4: the brother Barry, what does the physician.
Speaker 2: He immediately thinks Harold is is is out to get Tony,
Speaker 2: and he's angry the whole family is is really really
Speaker 2: becoming concerned.
Speaker 4: At this point, he thinks that Harold pushed his sister,
Speaker 4: So he's convinced of isn't it Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pushed her or threw the wood at her. But
Speaker 2: you know, you know this was this was Harold. This
Speaker 2: is something Harold did. And you know, the family's gone
Speaker 2: from sort of quietly gingerly walking on eggshells to to
Speaker 2: really getting worried about Tony's marriage and really worried about Harold.
Speaker 4: Henthorne now tell us about just the days before this
Speaker 4: incident and what police are finding from their investigation.
Speaker 2: At the same time, well, you know, police are kind
Speaker 2: of backtracking and they're looking into and when I say police,
Speaker 2: it starts out with an investigator from the Park Service,
Speaker 2: a homicide investigator who works for the Park Service. Now
Speaker 2: this is because this happened on a national park, this
Speaker 2: is considered a federal case, which will be very important
Speaker 2: later on. But you know, they start looking into Harold
Speaker 2: and his background, and you know, they've got this whole
Speaker 2: this map, this with the X marks the spot. But
Speaker 2: they start finding out that Harold is not telling the
Speaker 2: truth about his about his career. You know, they get
Speaker 2: a business card from him and it turns out it's
Speaker 2: just you know, post office box that he that he
Speaker 2: hasn't you know, filed any income tax returns with any money,
Speaker 2: doesn't make any money. He's not this high flying consultant
Speaker 2: for nonprofits. He basically sits around a you know, Panera
Speaker 2: cafe all day. You know, he's not what he appears,
Speaker 2: and so you know, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: red flags are starting are starting to flap.
Speaker 4: When there is news of their of Tony being killed.
Speaker 4: The family that plays the rule with Harold that they
Speaker 4: are not really suspicious of them and their support of them. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: what do they do and what is their fact in
Speaker 4: doing what they've planned to do?
Speaker 2: Right when you read the press accounts at the time,
Speaker 2: and it just did not make a lot of news
Speaker 2: at the time, small stories in the newspaper, local paper,
Speaker 2: this brief mention on the website of TV. They just
Speaker 2: it was characterized as a tragic accident. Tony's family immediately
Speaker 2: thought Harold had pushed her off the cliff, and very
Speaker 2: quickly they were in touch with investigators. But they decide
Speaker 2: not to confront Harold and instead, because there's no evidence
Speaker 2: really that he pushed her, only their suspicions, they decide
Speaker 2: to become sort of amateur undercover cops on behalf of
Speaker 2: the Park Service, and they go out to Denver. They
Speaker 2: talk to Harold, They observe Harold, they write everything down
Speaker 2: that he does, every contradiction in his various stories. They
Speaker 2: start very carefully prying into his past and they are
Speaker 2: reporting all of this information to the detective.
Speaker 4: What is his decision in terms of burial versus cremation
Speaker 4: and what's his behavior surrounding that decision.
Speaker 2: Well, he is just absolutely crazy. Around the time of
Speaker 2: the funeral. Now I say funeral, he had dead two funerals.
Speaker 2: They had one in Colorado and they had a different
Speaker 2: service out in Mississippi. And Harold is just all he's
Speaker 2: talking about is this stupid park ranger Charide and Barney
Speaker 2: Fife and what a dummy is and why you won't
Speaker 2: leave me alone? And me me, me, me, me me me. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: you know their Tony is dead. You know, they lost
Speaker 2: a daughter, they lost a sister, and all Harold's talking
Speaker 2: about me and poor me and why don't they leave
Speaker 2: me alone and all this kind of stuff, and they're,
Speaker 2: you know, they're getting really irritated by this. They also
Speaker 2: want Tony to have a burial. But but you know,
Speaker 2: Harold is insistent, insistent that she'd be cremated, and not
Speaker 2: just cremated, but right away, and he wants to sprinkle
Speaker 2: her ashes over a you know, off off a mountaintop,
Speaker 2: and you know they're they're really angry about that.
Speaker 4: It's interesting too, you you write how at this memorial
Speaker 4: he even they have to tell him to turn down
Speaker 4: the music. He's completely, like you say, crazed at this thing,
Speaker 4: with no respect for anyone, or it seems.
Speaker 2: No, he's he's he's really disrespectful. He's you know, all
Speaker 2: about himself. He's acting like he's the victim and all this.
Speaker 2: Uh it was around the time and might even been
Speaker 2: at the funeral when he got word somehow from the
Speaker 2: medical examiner that the medical examiner refused to call at
Speaker 2: an accident. And this gets him angry, you know, And
Speaker 2: just like the wedding, he wants to micromanage the funeral.
Speaker 2: He arranges this slide show that's a bunch of pictures
Speaker 2: of himself, you know, and it's just everything about him
Speaker 2: is just really weird. When they go to the service
Speaker 2: in Mississippi, you know, he's giving different versions of the
Speaker 2: story about what happened on the Mountain and you know,
Speaker 2: first it was he got the text from the babysitter
Speaker 2: who gave the score of the game. But then they
Speaker 2: find out the game hadn't happened yet or was about
Speaker 2: to happen or something. I mean, none, none of his
Speaker 2: stories add up. You know, Tony's brother already knows that.
Speaker 2: You know, the report that he gave about our vital
Speaker 2: signs was just not correct. He was using kind of
Speaker 2: like made up medical terminology. You know, it's just nothing
Speaker 2: about it made sense. Yet at the same time, he
Speaker 2: has you know, Haley, he's not arrested, he has custody
Speaker 2: of who is their granddaughter, niece, and you know, so
Speaker 2: they don't want to rock the boat too much, and
Speaker 2: they want to try to, you know, use all of
Speaker 2: these contradictions and crazy behavior against him, So they keep
Speaker 2: going along with him.
Speaker 4: Talk about detectives and interviewing people and talking to all
Speaker 4: kinds of people related to this. But you talk about
Speaker 4: detective Shot and Charity retracing the hike and trying to
Speaker 4: find that use trail that Harold had spoke of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah they trail. Yeah, they did a GoPro
Speaker 2: camera and you know, they just they couldn't figure out
Speaker 2: why this middle aged couple. And keep in mind, at
Speaker 2: this point in life, Tony has bad knees. She's had
Speaker 2: a couple of knee surgeries. You know, why on earth
Speaker 2: did this couple decide to take this virtuous hike side
Speaker 2: of a mountain? And then why did they, you know,
Speaker 2: go off the trail? And Harold said there was like
Speaker 2: a use trail or a maintenance trail or something like
Speaker 2: that that they went to. Well, they couldn't find that.
Speaker 2: They clearly just went right off the trail. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is the kind of stuff that dumb kids do,
Speaker 2: you know, not not a professional couples. You know, they
Speaker 2: just his story at every single turn is not making sense.
Speaker 4: They also analyzed the photo of Harold when he talks
Speaker 4: about this crucial photo was timestamped at thirty seconds after
Speaker 4: five o'clock exactly, which means that they could conclude that
Speaker 4: he waited nearly an hour to call nine one one,
Speaker 4: Yeah that was And then they say, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well what were you doing for that hour? And
Speaker 2: you know, he well, I climbed down the trail. You know,
Speaker 2: so why didn't you if your wife went off a cliff,
Speaker 2: why didn't you dial nine to one one immediately while
Speaker 2: it was still light. You know, we have and it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: We have that photo that he took of her standing
Speaker 2: and with nothing behind her, you know, and seconds after
Speaker 2: that picture's taken, she's gone. Wouldn't the first thing you
Speaker 2: would do is dial nine to one one help. My
Speaker 2: wife has fallen off a cliff.
Speaker 4: And also when they detectives went down that same route
Speaker 4: that he said it took forty five, it took them
Speaker 4: ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And you know, at each point they would
Speaker 2: come back and they would start asking Harold questions and
Speaker 2: and you know, either he wouldn't talk to them, or
Speaker 2: they would talk to the family, and they would feed
Speaker 2: these questions to the family, and he would give, you know,
Speaker 2: a whole variety of different answers. So his whole timeline
Speaker 2: just wasn't consistent and didn't make sense.
Speaker 4: This investigation. Detectives unearthed Daniel Jarvis tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit about what they get from Daniel j. Harvests. It
Speaker 4: seems very odd.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Daniel is like, I don't think he's
Speaker 2: officially a nephew. He's sort of a very close, you know,
Speaker 2: friend of Harold's and and you know, at the funeral,
Speaker 2: Harold is is, you know, just just out of control,
Speaker 2: and he's he's complaining to Daniel about you know, the verity,
Speaker 2: the ranger and and and the map, the map, the map,
Speaker 2: the map. You know, he's got something about this map.
Speaker 2: He won't leave me alone about the map, you know.
Speaker 2: And you know, Daniel, who liked and respected Harold, was
Speaker 2: very concerned, is like, well, why is Harold so paranoid?
Speaker 2: Why why won't he just let this business go about
Speaker 2: the ranger and and looking into the White's death. Because
Speaker 2: of course they're going.
Speaker 3: To do that.
Speaker 4: The As this investigation progresses, too, they uncover how this
Speaker 4: when we talked about the the the savings for Haley, Yeah,
Speaker 4: the trust for Haley, but that beneficiary changed. So at
Speaker 4: some point they find out that about that policy and
Speaker 4: other policies tell us about what they'd uncover.
Speaker 2: Sure, they find out that Harold greatly underestimated how much
Speaker 2: life insurance was on on his wife. In fact, it
Speaker 2: was over a million bucks. I think I can't remember
Speaker 2: what the exact amount was, but it was a lot
Speaker 2: of money. And worse, he lied the beneficiary was not Haley,
Speaker 2: it was him, And they uncover a couple of other
Speaker 2: life insurance policies that he didn't even tell them about,
Speaker 2: and the beneficiary was him.
Speaker 4: Now a letter happens sent to authorities talking about well,
Speaker 4: tell us what this letter sent to authorities talks about
Speaker 4: and the connection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is something Harold doesn't know. It's something
Speaker 2: the public doesn't know, and it's something the family of
Speaker 2: Tony only finds out a little bit later. But within days,
Speaker 2: within days of Tony going over the cliff, a letter
Speaker 2: goes to a couple of law enforcement agencies and the
Speaker 2: letter says, you know that case of the woman who
Speaker 2: fell off the cliff and Rocky Mountain National Park, Well,
Speaker 2: the husband had been married before, and there are similarities
Speaker 2: between what happened to Tony and what happened to this
Speaker 2: guy's first wife, and you may really want to investigate
Speaker 2: the death of his first wife.
Speaker 4: We're talking about Sandra Lynn Henhorn, and as you write,
Speaker 4: they they meet in high school. So tell us about
Speaker 4: their relationship before we talk about her demise.
Speaker 2: Sure so, And keep in mind, this is all information
Speaker 2: that Tony's family doesn't even know. All they knew was
Speaker 2: that they had They knew that he had been married
Speaker 2: before and they knew that his previous wife had died,
Speaker 2: and he kind of made it sound like it was
Speaker 2: a car accident or something, but it was much more
Speaker 2: than that. And so, Harold, when this was a college sweetheart.
Speaker 2: Her name is Sandra Lynch, she went by Lynn. They
Speaker 2: met at college and he was studying geology and she
Speaker 2: was she was studying social work. And they got married
Speaker 2: and moved to move to Colorado. And you know, she
Speaker 2: kind of eerily was was very similar to Tony, a
Speaker 2: deeply deeply religious woman, strong willed. They even look a
Speaker 2: little bit alike. Another another redhead. And yeah, and they
Speaker 2: had had this rather long marriage with this other woman
Speaker 2: that Tony's family knew absolutely nothing about.
Speaker 4: They looked into the records. Now because as we're this discovery,
Speaker 4: is that somebody's looking at these records from seventeen years
Speaker 4: before you're talking about Detective Stot And what do they
Speaker 4: see that's pretty evident in these records. What do they
Speaker 4: conclude at least just by looking at these records or
Speaker 4: lack of records.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the first Missus Henthorne dies in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: and like you said, seventeen years previous, and to Tony's death.
Speaker 2: And they go to the Sheriff's department there in Douglas
Speaker 2: County and they find out that Lynn Henthorne in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five was out driving with their husband, Harold, and
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night, the car gets a
Speaker 2: flat and while they are changing the tire of the car,
Speaker 2: somehow Lynn gets under the car. The car slips off
Speaker 2: the jack and crushes her to death. And this is
Speaker 2: on a little remote road out in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night, and Harold is the
Speaker 2: only the only witness.
Speaker 4: After that, he goes out onto the highway and or
Speaker 4: at least that's the first witness of what he does.
Speaker 4: What does he do and what does he say in
Speaker 4: response to what has happened to his wife?
Speaker 2: Well, he flags down this car load of people, the
Speaker 2: Montoya family. They've been out for the day drinking and
Speaker 2: you know, they pull over. He kind of flags him down.
Speaker 2: He said, oh, you know, there's been this accident. You know.
Speaker 2: A couple of the Montoya people go and remember this
Speaker 2: is now ninety five, this is before there's even cell phones.
Speaker 2: So they a couple of them peeled off and went
Speaker 2: to a little cabin nearby and found a guy who
Speaker 2: had a phone so they could call UH nine one one.
Speaker 2: And you know, one of the one of the Montoya
Speaker 2: family members tries to put a you know, jacket or
Speaker 2: something over you know, they see Lynn lying there, you know,
Speaker 2: and doesn't want he you know, Harald, they not don't
Speaker 2: cover up. He's acting very acting, very strange. And you know,
Speaker 2: he's telling this story that just doesn't make any sense
Speaker 2: about how his jeep slipped off a jack and landed
Speaker 2: on his wife.
Speaker 4: Does he tell them anything about how it comes to
Speaker 4: be that he's not he's at the back or he elaborates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, he gives you know, over the course of
Speaker 2: the evening, you know, eventually rescue people. Helicopter arrives interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: and and yeah, even though Lynn is very clearly dead
Speaker 2: on the brink of death. Anyway, they holler off to
Speaker 2: the hospital see if they can try to revive her.
Speaker 2: And you know, a series of young basically share his
Speaker 2: deputies talked to Harold that night, and you know, he
Speaker 2: gives them this story about how he had a had
Speaker 2: a not a blowout, but had kind of a soft
Speaker 2: tire on the road. It's a little road south of Denver.
Speaker 2: While they're out taking a day trip. They pulls over
Speaker 2: to the side of the road. He gets out, you know,
Speaker 2: he tries to jack up the the car with a
Speaker 2: with one jack and that jack doesn't work. And and
Speaker 2: then for some reason he has another jack that he
Speaker 2: uses for his boat, and so he tries to jack
Speaker 2: up the car with that jack. And then he's got
Speaker 2: a third jack with him and he and he's using
Speaker 2: that jack and he gets the you know, he gets
Speaker 2: the jeep up on the jacks and and he's kind
Speaker 2: of rickety boat jackson. He you know, he's taken the tires,
Speaker 2: the right front passenger tire off. Uh. He's handing the
Speaker 2: lug nuts to Lynn. Uh. He gets the tire off,
Speaker 2: he goes around to the back of the jeep and
Speaker 2: he throws the tire into the back of the jeep.
Speaker 2: And he thinks that the force of throwing the tire
Speaker 2: into the back of the jeep into the back area
Speaker 2: hatch area somehow knocks the jeep off the jack and
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, Lynn had found her way under the
Speaker 2: jeep and then the jeep tire well rim smashes onto
Speaker 2: her back.
Speaker 4: And so when he tells anyone, not anyone, when He
Speaker 4: tells several people this story, first with the people that
Speaker 4: were in the vehicle, then later with detective McMahon that
Speaker 4: arrives on the scene. Yeah, are they suspicious of this account,
Speaker 4: this explanation.
Speaker 2: Well, if you know, we're looking through what are almost
Speaker 2: twenty year old police reports, and yes, there is some suspicion.
Speaker 2: In fact, I think they call it suspicious death. They
Speaker 2: mark a little box on the form. You know, clearly
Speaker 2: the story is a little odd. Jeeps just don't fall
Speaker 2: on women in the middle of the night. You know,
Speaker 2: they're talking to him, and the interviews go keep in
Speaker 2: minds three or four to this. Detective McMahon kind of
Speaker 2: takes the lead, and you know, he talks to him
Speaker 2: at night, and then goes by his house a couple
Speaker 2: of days later with the supervisor and talks to him again.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of discrepancies in his story.
Speaker 2: You know, where did you go, Why were you out driving?
Speaker 2: You know, uh w why did you pull over? You know,
Speaker 2: did you go to you know, at one point he
Speaker 2: says they had dinner. At other point he said they
Speaker 2: were about to have dinner. You know, there's all kinds
Speaker 2: of discrepancies in the story and you know it, so, yes,
Speaker 2: it it seems suspicious, but when you read the reports
Speaker 2: now it doesn't scream suspicion. But they did call it
Speaker 2: a suspicious death investigation.
Speaker 4: Now the government has expanded its investigative team, as you say,
Speaker 4: adding FBI agent Jonathan Brusing, Mark Calico, both FBI and
Speaker 4: local police in Colorado, and they obviously find out about
Speaker 4: this death and do more research on this. And you
Speaker 4: say also that the US Attorney for Denver gets a
Speaker 4: warrant for Harold's cell phone records, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So now they've got two homicide potential homicides seventeen
Speaker 2: years apart, two wives, and it's a big investigation spanning
Speaker 2: a lot of years, and they get enough information to
Speaker 2: look into a cell phone and what they've what you
Speaker 2: can find from a cell phone is you can track
Speaker 2: where a phone was when calls were made, by whichever
Speaker 2: tower the calls being pinged. And it turns out that
Speaker 2: it appears Harold had been casing the location where they
Speaker 2: went hiking, had been driving around in Rocky Mountain National
Speaker 2: Park on weekends and days in which he claimed he
Speaker 2: was on business trips. And their conclusion is that he
Speaker 2: had been up there making plans and getting the lay
Speaker 2: of the land.
Speaker 4: He also at one point claimed that he was fooling
Speaker 4: with her phone on that trail that day. What do
Speaker 4: they find about eventually about that phone?
Speaker 2: If I recall right, her phone wasn't even with her,
Speaker 2: if I'm if I'm yeah, if I'm remembering this correctly,
Speaker 2: it was just one of many contradictions. They actually left
Speaker 2: the phone at her business office.
Speaker 4: Now, eventually they think they have enough information to try
Speaker 4: to arrest him and charge him and tell us of
Speaker 4: what I'm you know, obviously we've seen that they believe
Speaker 4: that there is definite link that he's killed before and
Speaker 4: he's killed again. What do they want to do with
Speaker 4: that information? Potentially? We know that when we watch some
Speaker 4: cases that past information cannot be admissible on a trial.
Speaker 4: So tell us a little bit about this endeavor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's they finally get enough information. And we're talking
Speaker 2: a long time as past. You know, this is months
Speaker 2: and months and months and months and months. This investigation
Speaker 2: has dragged on because they have no eyewitness, because they
Speaker 2: have no confession, because they have really no physical evidence.
Speaker 2: They just have a mountain of contradictions and strange behavior.
Speaker 2: But they also uncover that Harold had tried to take
Speaker 2: out a life insurance policy on somebody else and in
Speaker 2: law of his first wife, and that he had made
Speaker 2: himself a beneficiary of that life insurance policy and had
Speaker 2: lied to her about it. So you know, they've getten
Speaker 2: a lot of information. But it's critical, it's critical that
Speaker 2: they can use both of these deaths in the same case,
Speaker 2: even though he was not arrested the first time. In fact,
Speaker 2: the first investigation ended with the sheriffs deputies concluding that
Speaker 2: it was an accident despite all the contradictions. But they
Speaker 2: want to use the details. They want to use that information. Well,
Speaker 2: that's in law called a prior bad act, And basically
Speaker 2: under the law, you're charged with the crime that you're
Speaker 2: charged with. So if I rob a bank, you're charged
Speaker 2: with that crime. You face that evidence. So let's say
Speaker 2: I had, you know, beat up my wife previously, or
Speaker 2: even robbed a bank previously. You're not. Information is not
Speaker 2: allowed into the case. It's prejudicial, it has nothing to
Speaker 2: do with it. It's what they call propensity evidence. Just
Speaker 2: because you seem to act like a criminal doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you're criminal. The law is pretty strict on that that,
Speaker 2: you know, you are tried on the facts of the case.
Speaker 2: So if they're going to arrest him in the death
Speaker 2: of Tony, it has to only be under a lot
Speaker 2: of legal theories only about this one incident, and that
Speaker 2: they would not be allowed to include anything about the
Speaker 2: first wife's death or even that incident at the cabin.
Speaker 2: You know, as bad as that stuff looks, what does
Speaker 2: it have to do with Tony's death. But there is
Speaker 2: a legal theory. It's called the doctrine of chances. It
Speaker 2: goes back over one hundred years and it basically says,
Speaker 2: if the details are similar enough, it's not prejudicial, it's
Speaker 2: not prepensantary. It's like, what are the odds? You know,
Speaker 2: it goes to planning, it goes to a scheme, it
Speaker 2: goes to a very direct linkage. So if you can
Speaker 2: convince a judge, if you can convince a judge that
Speaker 2: the details are so similar that the odds are so astronomical,
Speaker 2: I mean, how many times does two wives you know,
Speaker 2: the same guy die under similar circumstances. If the odds
Speaker 2: vote astronomically against that, then the judge can allow that
Speaker 2: into evidence. And that's what they that's what they argued.
Speaker 4: Now people awaited this decision, the Burdolettes.
Speaker 2: And the.
Speaker 4: And pardon me and the other victims family as well.
Speaker 4: The what is the decision by the judge?
Speaker 2: The judge agrees to allow into evidence the first wife's
Speaker 2: death and all those details, even though he's never arrested.
Speaker 2: He agrees to allow into evidence details of the wood
Speaker 2: falling on Tony's head a few months before her murder
Speaker 2: at the cabin. He doesn't allow. There was this other
Speaker 2: life insurance policy on another woman I had mentioned. He
Speaker 2: does not allow that. He says that was a little
Speaker 2: too remote. But under the doctor and a chance, he
Speaker 2: does allow that evidence. So at trial, a jury will
Speaker 2: be allowed to not only hear about the evidence of
Speaker 2: Tony falling off the cliff, they will be allowed to
Speaker 2: hear evidence about the jeep falling on Linn even though
Speaker 2: even though he's not going to be charged in Lin's death,
Speaker 2: he's only going to be charged in Tony's death. But
Speaker 2: under this legal theory, they are allowed to bring in
Speaker 2: evidence and details about Lin's death.
Speaker 4: You talk about the media response with this, and particular
Speaker 4: one journalist that did some over and beyond the call
Speaker 4: of duty. We'll say and got some like you say,
Speaker 4: journalistic cups. Tell us a little bit about this media response,
Speaker 4: and it's a little unusual, it's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Brian Moss. He's a TV reporter in the
Speaker 2: Denver He's an investigative reporter in Denvery. And keep in
Speaker 2: mind this case, after Tony went off the cliff, little
Speaker 2: tiny story in the local papers, even on Brian's own
Speaker 2: own website, it was not a big deal. There was,
Speaker 2: way back in nineteen ninety five a little bit of
Speaker 2: information about Lynn's death in the local paper, but it
Speaker 2: was a one day story. Came and went, And so
Speaker 2: this investigative reporter in Denver is digging, digging, digging, digging,
Speaker 2: and he is able to get lots of information. He's
Speaker 2: able to find the autopsy report in which homicide was
Speaker 2: not excluded. He's able to get, you know, the contradictions
Speaker 2: that Harold is saying. He finds out information about the
Speaker 2: first wife, and he gets enough information to where, yeah,
Speaker 2: this was before Harold's arrest, that he's able to confront Harold.
Speaker 2: Harold won't talk to him, but the cat's kind of
Speaker 2: out of the bag at that point.
Speaker 4: This is also covered by forty eight hours and Dateline
Speaker 4: and People magazine correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, by the time, by the time he is charged,
Speaker 2: by the time the you know, between Massa's story and
Speaker 2: the authorities go public with all this, then it becomes
Speaker 2: a media sensation. And as more details are leaked out
Speaker 2: about that first investigation and how badly police handled it
Speaker 2: and how they you know, why they bought his story
Speaker 2: and came to the conclusion it was an accident. Is
Speaker 2: anybody's cast, Yeah, it becomes it becomes a real, a
Speaker 2: real media event.
Speaker 4: The real victim in this, especially the victim in this
Speaker 4: other than Tony's Hayley, the daughter. You talked about the
Speaker 4: family not wanting to upset the cart and stop visitation.
Speaker 4: But in twenty thirteen, when they publicly with the media
Speaker 4: came out and denounced him, tell us from that point
Speaker 4: up to the trial itself, a little bit about Haley.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's a shame. And you know, she's a
Speaker 2: sweet by all accounts, a sweet, wonderful girl. And and
Speaker 2: once the news gets out there and and Tony's family
Speaker 2: comments publicly, Harold will have nothing to do with them,
Speaker 2: and it's like an ugly divorce. You know. He starts
Speaker 2: bad mouthing Tony to his daughter, He starts bad mouthing
Speaker 2: Tony's family to his daughter. He becomes a real pest
Speaker 2: at the school, you know, and and Haley really really
Speaker 2: suffers some some difficult times.
Speaker 4: Now a trial, we talk about the US attorney Sunita Hazra,
Speaker 4: and how they're proceeding with this case, and you talk
Speaker 4: about all of the witnesses testified. How does this trial proceed?
Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, they they they won the big
Speaker 2: battle up front, which was to get the nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: five death information. But they still have a circumstantial case. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, legally, as I'm sure your you know listeners know,
Speaker 2: circumstantial evidence holds the same legal weight as direct evidence.
Speaker 2: But you know, let's be real, Uh, if you have
Speaker 2: forensic evidence, if you have direct evidence, you have eyewitness evidence,
Speaker 2: it always seems a lot stronger than if you're trying
Speaker 2: to build and trying to craft a story and ask
Speaker 2: the jury to make inferences. So they have they have
Speaker 2: a tough go and they're essentially the prosecution essentially asking
Speaker 2: the jury to believe that, you know, if Harold lied
Speaker 2: about all these different things from the time the text
Speaker 2: message came in from the babysitter to you know, why
Speaker 2: he spent so much time going down the cliff doing
Speaker 2: CPR blah blah blah. If he lied about all those things,
Speaker 2: and he's probably also lying about his innocence, and that's
Speaker 2: that's what they're trying to prove. And they're also trying
Speaker 2: to show that, you know, you know, what are the
Speaker 2: odds obviously he did this. It's just the odds are
Speaker 2: two astronomical that both of these wives would have died
Speaker 2: under such similar circumstances. You gotta believe that he killed Tony,
Speaker 2: you know. At the same time, weirdly, the defense the saying, look,
Speaker 2: you know, there's no witness, you know, no confession, really
Speaker 2: no forensic evidence. Yes, he's an odd duck, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean he's a killer.
Speaker 4: What were the what was it like for the families?
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit about any Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that the most difficult time a trial, you know,
Speaker 2: and this is stuff that they always do a trial,
Speaker 2: and it's very difficult. They show pictures of the crime scene,
Speaker 2: they show pictures of the body, they sometimes show autopsy photos,
Speaker 2: and you know, her family, Tony's family is there while
Speaker 2: they're seeing pictures that they're crushed and and dead, you know, daughter,
Speaker 2: and and you know even for even for this family,
Speaker 2: and they you know, they guarded themselves and tough in
Speaker 2: themselves up. They just it was just too much to bear.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: They're also sitting there watching Harold all day, you know,
Speaker 2: and and you can only imagine the anger and the
Speaker 2: sense of betrayal they had to have felt looking at
Speaker 2: this guy sitting there having you know, in their minds
Speaker 2: killed their killed their loved one. And then finally, I
Speaker 2: think the family and they were very you know, they're
Speaker 2: very open about that. When I talked to him, they
Speaker 2: felt a lot of guilt. You know, they blamed themselves.
Speaker 2: Could we have done something differently? You know, should we
Speaker 2: have intervened more when we were worried, you know, were
Speaker 2: we too concerned about hurting Tony's feelings? You know, should
Speaker 2: we spoken up? You know, could could we have prevented this?
Speaker 2: And and you know, they they're really really racked with guilt.
Speaker 4: Yvonne had said earlier that she had asked her husband
Speaker 4: to investigate after the incident at the cabin, to investigate Harold,
Speaker 4: and yet the husband or husband, Robert, didn't want to interfere.
Speaker 2: As you say, oh, she wanted. She raised the issue
Speaker 2: of hiring private investigator, and they talked about it and
Speaker 2: decided not to. You know, we're dealing with a woman
Speaker 2: who's you know, forty nine fifty years old, you know,
Speaker 2: not a child. And and you know, when they look
Speaker 2: back and in twenty twenty hindsight, yes, they should have
Speaker 2: dropped everything and hired investigative, looked into it and even
Speaker 2: if it meant you know, getting Tony upset, they should
Speaker 2: have done it. But they didn't.
Speaker 4: You talk about his Harold's demeanor and eye contact and
Speaker 4: behavior at this trial, what was that like, was there
Speaker 4: any flashes of acknowledgment of anything arrogance?
Speaker 2: Well, he was, you know, and you know this is
Speaker 2: you want them to be a monster. You know, this
Speaker 2: diabolical black widower. He did such horrible things, the prosecution said,
Speaker 2: Yet in court he was just kind of this pathetic figure,
Speaker 2: wouldn't look anybody in the eye. You know, lost a
Speaker 2: lot of weight in prison and jail rather and you know,
Speaker 2: he was just kind of pathetic.
Speaker 4: There was talk earlier where they found to discover that
Speaker 4: he had sent his brother because we don't really hear
Speaker 4: anything about his family at all, but talk about Harold's
Speaker 4: brother and the money he received a half a million
Speaker 4: dollars for his so called back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was, and that was the hardest nut for
Speaker 2: me to crack as a writer. As you can imagine,
Speaker 2: his family did not want to cooperate with this book.
Speaker 2: He had a brother, has a brother, and there were
Speaker 2: some financial shenanigans involving the life insurance money and money.
Speaker 2: You know, he Harold stood to inherit a lot of
Speaker 2: money from Tony, not just this whatever I think was
Speaker 2: ultimately millions of dollars in life insurance. But you know,
Speaker 2: she stood to inherit a lot of money and had
Speaker 2: a lot of money from family oil business. You know,
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of money bouncing around, and there
Speaker 2: were some financial shenanigans involving the brother, Harold's brother, and
Speaker 2: that he was trying to hide half a million dollars.
Speaker 2: And you know, he made a brief appearance in this thing,
Speaker 2: never really gave any comment and has drifted away.
Speaker 4: There's some interesting testimony to Tamara Gordon, a photographer, testifying
Speaker 4: again about how Harold had a different story for what
Speaker 4: he was doing at that exact time that he noticed
Speaker 4: she was gone, and then her describing well, maybe you
Speaker 4: can tell us about her experience at the memorial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just it was another one of these things,
Speaker 2: like all the witnesses, he couldn't tell the same story
Speaker 2: twice about what happened up there on the mountain. And again,
Speaker 2: you would think a moment like this would be just
Speaker 2: etched in your psyche. I mean, this has to be
Speaker 2: the most traumatic moment of a person's life. She had
Speaker 2: actually worked with Harold before and knew him, and you know,
Speaker 2: she was another one who just talked about his bizarre
Speaker 2: behavior and how you know his wife is lying on
Speaker 2: a slab at the morgue, and you know, he's all
Speaker 2: excited about the slide show and picking out the photos
Speaker 2: and you know, and people at the funeral call it
Speaker 2: the Harold Henthorne show, you know, all these pictures of
Speaker 2: himself and picking out the music. And you know, she
Speaker 2: was she was really put off by that.
Speaker 4: And also he shared with her that he had lost
Speaker 4: his first wife in a car accident. Incredibly, yes, yes,
Speaker 4: and this is the story.
Speaker 2: He told a lot of people that it was a
Speaker 2: car accident if he if he mentioned it at all,
Speaker 2: but there were never any details, and he certainly never
Speaker 2: gave any details to Tony's family. In fact, again, these
Speaker 2: are very mannered, nice people. They thought it would be
Speaker 2: untoward of them to ask or to press. And I'm
Speaker 2: you know, I always we don't know now, of course,
Speaker 2: but I'm always curious how much Tony knew, you know,
Speaker 2: and whether he ever told her anything. My guess is
Speaker 2: she didn't know.
Speaker 4: You Also, you talk about the the other witnesses as well.
Speaker 4: Daniel Jarvis does some damaging testimony when he talks about
Speaker 4: the map, and when he talks about the conversation. Tell
Speaker 4: us about that conversation. That's somewhat damaging at troll, wasn't it?
Speaker 2: Is this the one and you're gonna have to you
Speaker 2: probably remember this one better than I do. But didn't
Speaker 2: you want Daniel to hold the map or keep the map?
Speaker 2: Something like that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it was you know, it just
Speaker 2: sort of fell under you know, It's just it's just
Speaker 2: this web, this this this cascade of strange behavior and
Speaker 2: seemingly incriminating behavior. And I think he asked Daniel, you know,
Speaker 2: hold on to this map, and I think there was
Speaker 2: some issue about the photos. He didn't he wanted Daniel
Speaker 2: to to hold on to some of the photos from
Speaker 2: that day. But it kind of falls under the category of, well,
Speaker 2: he's acting odd, but he's not admitting to murder. You know,
Speaker 2: he's not saying I killed the beat. You know, he's
Speaker 2: not I plan this. You know, he's just acting strange.
Speaker 2: And and even after all the investigation, that's really the
Speaker 2: crux of the case is one witness after another is
Speaker 2: saying he changed his story and he acted odd, he
Speaker 2: acted inappropriately. But you know, the question for the jury
Speaker 2: is does that all add up to a murder conviction?
Speaker 2: You know, did he change his story enough? Did he
Speaker 2: act strangely enough to where you could vote for murder?
Speaker 2: And that's you know, that's a you know, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of reasonable doubt there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you say it's circumstantial, But in this case,
Speaker 4: there is a lot of stuff that they're chipping away
Speaker 4: in because they're trying to counter as many get as
Speaker 4: many witnesses to say, Okay, in hindsight, he had odd behavior,
Speaker 4: and yet some of these people didn't put that in
Speaker 4: a report. But then they say, well, he did this
Speaker 4: and he did that. But again that's in retrospect, it's
Speaker 4: odd behavior now considering but there was a lot of
Speaker 4: that type of evidence that they just tried to stack
Speaker 4: up in volume.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what it really meant is the prosecution had to
Speaker 2: tell a story. It wasn't enough to just lay out
Speaker 2: the evidence, present the evidence, show it to the jury.
Speaker 2: Here's a picture. Here, here's the police report. They really
Speaker 2: had to be storytellers. They had to do what I did,
Speaker 2: you know, which is tell a compelling story. And because
Speaker 2: it was all about the connections, it was all about
Speaker 2: the inferences, it was all about the you know, if
Speaker 2: you didn't believe this, do you believe that? If you
Speaker 2: didn't believe this, do you believe that? You know? And
Speaker 2: this man, you know, telling lie after lie after lie,
Speaker 2: and at what point, at what point, what's the tipping
Speaker 2: point where he lied so much you have to believe
Speaker 2: he's a killer.
Speaker 4: Now you talk about the important testimony of of Beth's stought,
Speaker 4: how important is that testimony and what does she really
Speaker 4: be able to help the prosecution?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she was the park Service investigator, and you know,
Speaker 2: she is one who is sort of on the front
Speaker 2: lines of unmasking Harold. You know, and he didn't just
Speaker 2: lie about what happened up on the mountain. He lied
Speaker 2: about his entire being. He claimed to be this this businessman, well,
Speaker 2: in fact he was not. He claimed to have all
Speaker 2: this money, In fact he did not. He claimed to
Speaker 2: be taking business trips. No, he was out casing the scene.
Speaker 2: And you know, so she did a lot of that,
Speaker 2: a lot of that grunt work. You know, there was
Speaker 2: a whole other subplot here involving the diamond on on
Speaker 2: Tony's wedding ring, you know, wedding set. Right when she
Speaker 2: went to the U went to the morgue, that diamond
Speaker 2: was missing, and you know, nobody saw it at the scene,
Speaker 2: and you know, Harold's kind of asked about it, and
Speaker 2: you know, they go back to the scene a little
Speaker 2: bit later, and there it is. You know, I mean,
Speaker 2: the whole thing is just kind of weird, you know.
Speaker 2: And so you know, investigator shot in. The FBI guys,
Speaker 2: you know, they they they're able to keep you know,
Speaker 2: piling this this lie upon lie upon lie. You know, No,
Speaker 2: the insurance didn't go to Haley, it went to him. No,
Speaker 2: it wasn't you know, four hundre thousand dollars insurance. It
Speaker 2: was you know, millions of dollars in insurance. No, you know,
Speaker 2: one thing after another. And you know, it's not sexy
Speaker 2: police work, it's not gotcha police work, but they were
Speaker 2: able to build this huge, circumstantial case.
Speaker 4: We're talking about September twenty fifteenth and what would have
Speaker 4: been the Hendhorn's fifteenth wedding anniversary. Tell us what Sanita
Speaker 4: Hazro says to the jury.
Speaker 2: You mean, is this their summation or is this her?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Basically basically what she thinks she's done in this
Speaker 4: in this trial, in this case which she's proven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, she's she's painting the picture
Speaker 2: of kind of the ultimate betrayal. That Tony Henthorne that
Speaker 2: morning got up and put on her makeup and put
Speaker 2: on her lipstick, and and you know, wanted to look
Speaker 2: her best for the world and for her husband, and
Speaker 2: and even though she had bad knees, she was game.
Speaker 2: You know, her husband wanted to have this romantic hike.
Speaker 2: She went on a romantic hike, even though must have
Speaker 2: been very difficult. And and you know, the prosecutor this
Speaker 2: is a multi story courthouse, and the prosecutor recalls looking
Speaker 2: out over the window and looking down on the street
Speaker 2: and realizing just how far, how far Tony felt and
Speaker 2: how sort of the last hand that touched her was
Speaker 2: the the hand that the man she thought she loved
Speaker 2: and thought loved her. And what a betrayal that is,
Speaker 2: what a betrayal. That was the last touch, and that
Speaker 2: was that last touch was her husband pushing her off
Speaker 2: a cliff. And it was poignant and difficult and emotional.
Speaker 2: And you know something I don't think a male prosecutor
Speaker 2: would have would have jumped on. But you know, the
Speaker 2: prosecution to women prosecute women prosecutors, you know they wore
Speaker 2: lipstick and they know about lipstick. And it was a
Speaker 2: small detail of all this evidence, but if Harold Hanthorne
Speaker 2: had been doing CPR on his wife, he should have
Speaker 2: been covered in her lipstick, and he wasn't. And it's
Speaker 2: just one of those little, almost novelistic details that helped
Speaker 2: make this such a compelling story for the jury.
Speaker 4: In this too, in your book, we find out again
Speaker 4: he might not seem like a Ted Bundy that level,
Speaker 4: but the ability of this psychopathic killer to be able
Speaker 4: to have a close relationship with the woman he murdered
Speaker 4: her parents and they supported him and inviting the nieces
Speaker 4: over it to his cabin for a week. They was trusted,
Speaker 4: and he would have attempted to do that with this
Speaker 4: other the next Tony's family as well. Incredible composure he
Speaker 4: had and his behavior is especially despicable when you think
Speaker 4: about it. And by that time, the jury and everyone
Speaker 4: had known actually who he really was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's you know, monsters come in many, many
Speaker 2: forms and and some monsters are born and some are made,
Speaker 2: and some are born and then made. And I think
Speaker 2: I think Harold was a He was a monster who
Speaker 2: was born, but he had some help. And I think
Speaker 2: I think, and I know this might seem unfair, but
Speaker 2: he he probably was emboldened by the fact that he
Speaker 2: got away with Linz allegedly got away sure Lyn's death.
Speaker 2: He might have been emboldened by the idea that he
Speaker 2: was let go, not even arrested, not not even held
Speaker 2: as a suspect, not even really questioned, certainly not interrogated.
Speaker 2: Even at the police department they talked to him. You
Speaker 2: know that he may have felt I got away with
Speaker 2: it once, I can get away with it again. And
Speaker 2: one has to wonder. And I'm certain that the investigators
Speaker 2: in that first case, who all stayed with the department,
Speaker 2: they were young cops at the time, and they all
Speaker 2: became supervisors and high ranking police are all still there,
Speaker 2: same guys, DETECTA McMahon, all of them are still there.
Speaker 2: Have to wonder if we had done a better job,
Speaker 2: if we had done a better job, would Tony be
Speaker 2: alive today? Because the fact that he was not considered
Speaker 2: a suspect, was not put under the microscope in that
Speaker 2: first death, might have might have made him even more
Speaker 2: of a monster, might have made him feel invincible. I
Speaker 2: got away with it once, I can get away with
Speaker 2: it again.
Speaker 4: At the same time, he seemingly so easily got away
Speaker 4: that maybe he was careless, which seemingly was in some
Speaker 4: regards the second time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what's scary about this case is that,
Speaker 2: you know, despite the fact that he couldn't keep his
Speaker 2: stories straight and he was acting strange in front of
Speaker 2: a lot of people, if you can put up with
Speaker 2: the heat, you can get away with murder if you
Speaker 2: don't have witnesses, if you don't leave it, I mean,
Speaker 2: another jury may have acquitted. And keep in mind, he
Speaker 2: has still not been charged with Lynd's death. Case remains
Speaker 2: officially open. But let's face it, it's never going to
Speaker 2: happen So the reality is, if you believe he killed Lynn,
Speaker 2: as the prosecution clearly did, he did get away with
Speaker 2: one of them right now, despite everything we're saying. So
Speaker 2: if you can put up with it, and if he
Speaker 2: had just not been such a big mouth, if he
Speaker 2: had not let his ego and his hubris get in
Speaker 2: the way, you know, he might be sitting at home
Speaker 2: right now with Haley.
Speaker 4: It seemed like too that for a smart guy, he
Speaker 4: didn't do his all the research he needed, not to
Speaker 4: give anybody advice or inspiration with this, but he didn't
Speaker 4: seem to do all the research.
Speaker 2: No, and you know, here's the here's where the first
Speaker 2: case comes into play. This is Douglas County Sheriff's department,
Speaker 2: you know, very competent sheriff's department. But these you know,
Speaker 2: these investigators, these are kids in their twenties, you know, McMahon.
Speaker 2: This his first first death investigation. Okay, they did the
Speaker 2: best could arguably made a lot of mistakes, but they
Speaker 2: were not they were not great cops. They were not experienced.
Speaker 2: Second time around, he's dealing with the FBI. Okay, he's
Speaker 2: dealing with the federal government and all of its resources.
Speaker 2: He's dealing at a time when there's electronic communication, electronic
Speaker 2: evidence GP, I mean cell phone evidence, and he thought
Speaker 2: he was perhaps thought he was dealing with Douglas County again,
Speaker 2: and now he's up against the FBI, and it was
Speaker 2: a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 4: Interestingly, you say that because he said as much in
Speaker 4: that If it was, you can tell us what he
Speaker 4: actually said. But he said it was fifty yards difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, if he had been just you know, if
Speaker 2: this had happened in Esta's Park or somewhere else, not
Speaker 2: in the confines of Rocky Mountain National Park, it would
Speaker 2: not be literally a federal case. It would have been
Speaker 2: a local case. Now it's who knows if the local
Speaker 2: cops would have done, you know, as good a job.
Speaker 2: But clearly he underestimated what he was up against.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a fascinating story for those people that will
Speaker 4: pick up the book. It's incredible. The Christian Mingle profile,
Speaker 4: you talk about it in the beginning, it was so
Speaker 4: over the top. I've never read anything so customized to
Speaker 4: sound like the most wonderful man in the world.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of this is sort of it's
Speaker 2: all about twenty twenty hindsight you know, and when you're
Speaker 2: looking for love, you overlook things. Right, when you're looking
Speaker 2: to love somebody, you overlook things. When you want your
Speaker 2: daughter to be happy, you overlook things. And this is
Speaker 2: the whole case about a bunch of people who overlook
Speaker 2: things and now look back and I said, oh my god,
Speaker 2: what what did I do?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, incredible tale. Thank you very much Michael Fleeman
Speaker 4: for coming on and talking about the Black Widower. For
Speaker 4: those that might want to look at other work, do
Speaker 4: you have a website or.
Speaker 2: Facebook Oneleman dot com or if you go on Amazon,
Speaker 2: put in my last name f L E E M
Speaker 2: A N. I'm the only one and you'll find my
Speaker 2: author page. You can buy any of my books on
Speaker 2: Amazon and or go on my website, or you can
Speaker 2: go on Wild Bluepress dot com is another website that
Speaker 2: you can buy a book.
Speaker 4: Sounds great. I want to thank you very much, Michael.
Speaker 4: You have a great evening. Hope to talk to you
Speaker 4: again soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Nean, thank you, good night,